Putin's Role Model

Jonah Goldberg

1/10/2008 12:01:00 AM - Jonah Goldberg

Vladimir Putin has had some great publicity lately. Time magazine recently
dubbed him the Person of the Year. What that says about "You" - the previous
recipient of the P.O.Y. designation - I don't know. Time gave Putin that
title because he represents a mounting preference for authoritarianism over
the chaos of democracy and the uncertainty of the free market. He "has
performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a
nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of
world power," the editors declare.

While Time saw fit to linger on "the Russian president's pale blue eyes," it
left out a fascinating rationale for Putin's power grab. For much of the
last year, the Russian government has been lionizing an American president
who roughly seized the reins of power, dealt briskly with civil liberties,
had a harsh view of constitutional niceties and crafted a media strategy,
which critics derided as "propaganda," that went "over the heads" of the
Washington press corps.

George W. Bush? Nope. Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Putin has routinely invoked FDR as his role model. "Roosevelt laid out his
plan for the country's development for decades in advance," he gushed at a
news conference last fall. "At the end of the day, it turned out that the
implementation of that plan benefited ordinary citizens and the elites and
eventually brought the United States to the position it is in today."

"Roosevelt was our military ally in the 20th century, and he is becoming our
ideological ally in the 21st," Putin's chief "ideologist," Vladislav Surkov,
explained at a state-sponsored conference commemorating the 125th
anniversary of FDR's birth.

There's a rich irony here. For years, liberals have wailed about the moral
hazard of Bush's supposedly crypto- (or not-so-crypto) fascist presidency.
And yet it's FDR, Lion of American Liberalism, who, some seven decades after
his death, endures as the role model for Russia's lurch toward
authoritarianism, if not fascism.

Interestingly, there's precedent for this. Both Fascist Italy and National
Socialist Germany invoked FDR's New Deal as proof that their own programs
were, in Anne Morrow Lindbergh's famous phrase, "the wave of the future."

"America has a dictator," Benito Mussolini proclaimed, watching FDR from
abroad. He marveled at how the forces of "spiritual renewal" on display in
the New Deal were destroying the outdated notion that democracy and
liberalism were "immortal principles." "Roosevelt is moving, acting, giving
orders independently of the decisions or wishes of the Senate or Congress.
... A sole will silences dissenting voices." That almost sounds like Harry
Reid talking about Bush.

Mussolini reviewed FDR's book, "Looking Forward," proclaiming the author a
kindred spirit. The way Roosevelt "calls his readers to battle," he wrote,
"is reminiscent of the ways and means by which fascism awakened the Italian
people." "Without question," he continued, the "sea change" in America
"resembles that of fascism." Indeed, the comparisons were so commonplace,
Mussolini's press office banned the practice. "It is not to be emphasized
that Roosevelt's policy is fascist because these comments are immediately
cabled to the United States and are used by his foes to attack him."

In Germany, the newly empowered National Socialists were equally eager to
claim FDR's New Deal as an endorsement of "Hitler's New Deal" - in historian
David Schoenbaum's phrase. The German press adored FDR. In 1934, the
"Vlkischer Beobachter," the Nazi Party's official newspaper, described
Roosevelt as a man of "irreproachable, extremely responsible character and
immovable will" and a "warm-hearted leader of the people with a profound
understanding of social needs." A review of "Looking Forward" noted that
"many passages ... could have been written by a National Socialist. In any
case, one can assume that (FDR) feels considerable affinity with the
National Socialist philosophy." Hitler sent FDR a letter celebrating his
"heroic efforts" and "successful battle against economic distress." Hitler
informed the U.S. ambassador, William Dodd, that New Dealism was also "the
quintessence of the German state philosophy."

Obviously, one can only credit the opinions of Nazis so far. And it should
go without saying that FDR led the way to crush Nazism and fascism in Europe
in the name of democracy. Even so, we forget how (BEGIN ITALICS)martial(END
ITALICS) FDR was, long before World War II loomed on the horizon. Almost
every New Deal program was rooted in the logic of Woodrow Wilson's "war
socialism." The dubious constitutionality of the New Deal was rationalized
under the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act. In his first inaugural, FDR dubs
all of America a single "great Army" he would lead in a "disciplined attack
upon our common problems." In fireside chats, he'd call for such things as a
great "summer offensive against unemployment."

Meanwhile, some in FDR's administration admired fascism. Gen. Hugh Johnson,
head of the National Recovery Administration and Time's Man of the Year in
1933, had an abiding fondness for Mussolini's Italy. He distributed "The
Corporate State," an Italian fascist tract, to his colleagues and hung Il
Duce's portrait on his wall. The Blue Eagle - the symbol of the National
Recovery Administration, often compared to the Nazi eagle and the swastika -
was, according to Roosevelt, like the "bright badge" soldiers wore "in war,
in the gloom of night" so that "comrades do not fire on comrades." "On that
principle," FDR told the country, "those who cooperate in this program must
know each other at a glance." At one point, FDR aide Harold Ickes had to
warn the boss that Americans had started to "to unconsciously group four
names, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Roosevelt."

Back in the here and now, GWB has done nothing remotely like what FDR did
(for good or for ill, some might say). Despite the constant bleating about
his hostility to the rule of law and civil liberties, he hasn't tried to,
say, pack the Supreme Court, or round up hundreds of thousands of Japanese
(or Muslim) people.

Bush's critics certainly have a point that our leaders need to think about
the example we set. It's advice liberals should have heeded long ago.